Gameday

The Minnesota Timberwolves moved to 2-1 on the preseason following a win over the Chicago Bulls, Saturday night.

I was at work for 12.5 hours today, so I was only able to see the last quarter and a half, which means this recap will be focused on what I saw as well as plenty of stats. That means I saw Shved's fourth quarter explosion. I saw Pekovic dominating in the post, Amundson's energy in the post, Kevin Love & AK47 sitting courtside and also heard the TWolves' new play-by-play broadcaster Dave Benz.

Speaking of the new broadcaster, from the quarter and half I listened to him & Jim 'Pete', I'm definitely going to enjoy listening to him throughout the season, of course I'll miss Tom Hanneman though.

Watching the Wolves in that fourth quarter, it was a back-and-forth affair. That seemed the case the entire game! On the back of Alexey Shved's 12-point final quarter the Wolves were able to pull away and secure their second win of the preseason.

Did Nikola Pekovic change his name to Kevin Love this offseason? 17 rebounds, what PEKsecution! Watching Shved pick apart the defense in the fourth quarter with a couple passes as well as getting the 'three-ball' going, while also driving to the rim. The Timberwolves were without Andrei Kirilenko (hamstring) and Kevin Love (sore right elbow) from their starting lineup. In their place(s) Chase Budinger & Dante Cunningham got the start(s).

The Bulls got some impressive play from their veteran guard Kirk Hinrich and their center Joakim Noah. Chicago was without Luol Deng, Richard Hamilton and of course Derrick Rose. Hinrich will be their starting point guard until Rose returns (sounding like sometime in the spring?), Jimmy Butler started at small forward and Marco Belinelli was the starting off-guard.

Let's take a look at the team stats...

Minnesota

22-67 (33%)4-16 (25%)34-51 (67%)46 (15)111143019 (9)32582

STATS

Chicago

25-68 (37%)3-13 (23%)22-35 (63%)43 (13)101073923 (21)22975

This one was really a back-and-forth battle through three quarters. After a few minutes through the fourth quarter, the TWolves were able to pull away for the victory. The Wolves struggled shooting from the field. Shooting 33% won't get the job done most nights. Whle the Wolves struggled to shoot from the field they had plenty of free throw attempts (and enough conversions) to waltz out for the W. The Wolves also turned the ball over 19 times, luckily the Bulls could only put up nine points, off them.

All in all you have to remember this is a preseason game. It really doesn't matter. We were without two of our everyday starters--they were without two of their everyday starters (I'm not counting Rose, since he'll be missing a rather large majority of the season). Nonetheless, your Minnesota Timberwolves are now 2-1 in October and will look to make that 3-1 following Wednesday's game vs. the Israeli team Maccabi Bazan Haifa.

You can expect a full gameday preview of that one early next week, until then, thanks for reading HOWL and GO WOLVES!